whenever you talk to him, you get insights and thoughts you don’t hear at any other place. a lot of us, we just synthesize what is important and what isn’t important. he’s creating them. and thats impressive.

“I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success . . . Such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything.”

In Boston, they studied with Ted Barron, a historian of contemporary independent American film, who was impressed by their industriousness. “They were always making stuff,” Barron says. “The other students would only make films when they were told to.

One afternoon, at a cheap Thai restaurant in midtown, Josh Safdie tried to explain his complicated feelings about his chosen profession. “I think movies are against nature,” he said. “It’s the most perverted art form.” He was talking about how filmmakers manipulate the world around them, using viewers’ voyeurism to trick them into caring about an invented reality. “It’s trying to replicate life,” he said. “Which is fucked up—and so powerful.”